Woods v. World Truck Transfer
| Decision Date | 03 December 1999 |
| Docket Number | 97-00068 |
| Parties | MINA WOODS and ROBERT WOODS, Plaintiffs/Appellants, VS. WORLD TRUCK TRANSFER, INC., and EDWARD J. SEIGHAM, Defendants/Appellees. AppealIN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE Filed |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
APPEAL FROM THE DAVIDSON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
Davidson Circuit No. 93C-280
THE HONORABLE BARBARA N. HAYNES, JUDGE
This appeal involves a personal injury action that was dismissed because the Clerk of the Circuit Court for Davidson County refused to accept and file a summons that had not been prepared on an original form provided by the clerk. By the time the plaintiff provided another summons acceptable to the clerk, the time for filing the complaint and the summons had elapsed. Accordingly, on motion of one of the defendants, the Circuit Court for Davidson County dismissed the personal injury claim because it was time-barred. We have determined that the clerk's office exceeded its authority when it declined to accept and file the summons and, therefore, that the trial court erred by dismissing the complaint. Accordingly, we vacate the order dismissing the personal injury claims and remand the case for further proceedings.
For Plaintiffs/Appellants:
Stanley H. Less, Memphis, Tennessee
For Defendants/Appellees:
John Thomas Feeney, Cynthia DeBula Baines, Feeney & Lawrence, Nashville, Tennessee
AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED IN PART AND REMANDED
Mina Woods was traveling on Interstate 65 in Nashville when her automobile was struck by a tractor trailer truck. The force of the collision drove Ms. Woods's automobile into a concrete median. After striking the median, Ms. Woods's automobile ricocheted back into the path of another oncoming tractor trailer truck and then careened over a grassy embankment. Ms. Woods was seriously injured, and her automobile was substantially damaged.
On February 1, 1993, Ms. Woods and her husband filed suit in the Circuit Court for Davidson County against World Truck Transfer, Inc., the owner of the truck that first struck her automobile, and Edward Seigham, the driver of the truck. Ms. Woods had difficulty serving World Truck Transfer and Mr. Seigham because they were Ohio residents.1 The original process to World Truck Transfer was returned unserved on February 23, 1993, marked "forwarding order expired." Likewise, the original process to Mr. Seigham was returned unserved on March 25, 1993, marked "unclaimed." Alias process issued on Mr. Seigman was also returned unserved in August 1993, marked "moved."
Ms. Woods and her husband undertook to save their personal injury claims from untimeliness by recommencing their action against both World Truck Transfer and Mr. Seigham pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3. Accordingly, their lawyer, who practices in Memphis, mailed a new complaint and summons to the trial court clerk. The clerk received the suit papers on January 27, 1994. While the clerk's office filed the new complaint on January 27, 1994, it declined to accept or file the summonses accompanying the complaint because they were prepared on photocopies of the original printed summons form used by the circuit courts in Davidson County. In a telephone conversation, the chief deputy clerk requested Ms. Woods's lawyer to provide new summonses on original forms and agreed to mail these forms to Memphis. The lawyer prepared new summonses, and they were received by the trial court clerk on February 18, 1994.
As with the original suit, the process in the second case was initially returned unserved. The process issued to Mr. Seigham was returned on March 11, 1994, marked "moved, not forwardable," and the original process to World Truck Transfer was returned marked "forwarding order expired." Stymied by their continuing inability to effect service through the Secretary of State, Ms. Woods and her husband placed alias summonses in the hands of a private process server in Ohio who was eventually able to locate and serve World Truck Transfer on June 7, 1994. All efforts to serve Mr. Seigham proved unsuccessful.
World Truck Transfer promptly moved for a partial summary judgment on the ground that the second complaint was untimely under the statute of limitations in Tenn. Code Ann. 28-3-104(a)(1) (Supp. 1999). World Truck Transfer argued that Ms. Woods and her husband had not successfully recommenced their original action within one year after the issuance of the original process because the circuit court clerk had not accepted the summonses in their recommenced action until February 18, 1994 - more than one year after the issuance of the original process. In response, Ms. Woods and her husband asserted that the unwillingness of the clerk's office to accept and file the summonses was an "omission" or "clerical mistake" correctable under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.01. Accordingly, they moved to "correct the record" to show that they had delivered both their complaint and the summonses to the trial court clerk in a timely manner. The trial court eventually denied Ms. Woods's Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.01 motion and granted World Truck Transfer's partial summary judgment motion, with regard to the personal injury claims.
While the motions in the second proceeding were pending, Ms. Woods and her husband had pluries process issued against World Truck Transfer in the moribund first suit. Their private process server served World Truck Transfer with this process on August 4, 1994. In the spring of 1995, World Truck Transfer moved to dismiss the first suit based on the running of the statute of limitations and the lack of service. After the trial court dismissed the first suit on August 29, 1996, Ms. Woods and her husband filed a timely notice of appeal but failed to file an appeal bond. When their lawyer failed to appear at a show cause hearing, the trial court dismissed Ms. Woods's and her husband's appeal from the dismissal of their first complaint for failure to file an appeal bond. The trial court later declined to set aside its dismissal of the first appeal after Ms. Woods belatedly filed an appeal bond. Ms. Woods and her husband appealed from this order.
Ms. Woods and her husband let their second renewed complaint languish while attempting to resurrect their first complaint. In January 1997, the trial court dismissed what was left of the second suit for lack of prosecution. At that point, Ms. Woods and her husband, completely out of court on all their claims in both actions, filed a notice of appeal in the second suit. In the interests of judicial economy, we ordered that the appeals involving the first and second suits be consolidated for disposition.
The primary issue confronting us concerns the legal effect of the trial court clerk's refusal to accept and file the summonses accompanying the second complaint filed by Ms. Woods and her husband. While Ms. Woods and her husband frame the issue with reference to the trial court's denial of their Tenn. R. Civ. P. 60.01 motion, their substantive arguments address the same question. Accordingly, we focus first on the trial court clerk's actions regarding the summonses accompanying the second complaint. We have determined that the trial court clerk erred by declining to accept and file these summonses.
Ms. Woods and her husband filed suit against World Truck Transfer and Mr. Seigham within one year after her cause of action accrued. After they were unable to serve either World Truck Transfer or Mr. Seigham, they decided to keep their suit alive by recommencing the action within one year from the issuance of the original process. See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3(2). At that time, Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3 provided that "[a]ll civil actions are commenced by filing a complaint and summons with the clerk of the court." Thus, when Ms. Woods and her husband "recommenced" their action in 1994, they were required to file a complaint and the accompanying summonses within one year from the issuance of the original process.
The Memphis lawyer representing Ms. Woods and her husband mailed the trial court clerk a new complaint and the accompanying summonses well before Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3(2)'s deadline. The summonses were photocopies of the original summons form used by the trial court clerk. The trial court clerk accepted and filed the new complaint but declined to accept and file the summonses because they were photocopies, as opposed to original, summons forms.2 By the time the lawyer provided summonses acceptable to the clerk, the time for recommencing the action had lapsed.
As a result of the trial court clerk's refusal to accept their summonses, Ms. Woods and her husband did not successfully recommence their action because they failed to file a new complaint and summons within one year after the issuance of the original process. Their failure to do so meant that they could not "rely upon the original commencement to toll the running of a statute of limitations." See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3. Preventing Ms. Woods and her husband from taking advantage of the relation-back feature of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 3 caused their renewed complaint to be filed late. Thus, the correctness of the dismissal of the renewed complaint filed by Ms. Woods and her husband hinges on the correctness of the trial court clerk's refusal to accept and file the photocopied summonses received by the clerk on January 27, 1994.
The term "process," as generally understood in the context of legal proceedings, means the command issued in the state's name to effect the jurisdiction of a court either at the beginning of, during, or at the end of a lawsuit. See Sam B. Gilreath, Caruthers' History of a Lawsuit, 29 (6th ed. 1937). In courts of record, the original, or leading, process used in most cases is the "summons." A summons is nothing more than a formal...
To continue reading
Request your trial